


Along the Injured Coast

by tardisy



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie), F/M, Gen, M/M, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-02
Updated: 2019-05-02
Packaged: 2020-02-15 22:03:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18678217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tardisy/pseuds/tardisy
Summary: It was him.It had always been him.





	Along the Injured Coast

“It was you.”

Steve squinted up at him, Bucky’s shadow playing across the rolling valleys of his achingly familiar face, draping down his nose, his cheekbones, sharp slopes eroded and gentled with time. His chapped lips were a thin, tight line; the deep laugh lines at the corners of his eyes were new, but his gaze, heavy and intense and blue, blue, blue, was as recognizable as it ever was.

Bucky clenched his jaw, repeated on a shaky exhale, “It was you,” the sudden realization making him dizzy.

The ramshackle shack he stumbled upon after a mission gone bad, an oddly placed structure against the frozen, lonesome Carpathian backdrop, his blood pooling in a messy trail across freshly fallen snow and the pitted wooden threshold.

The bread and pint of goat’s milk in an otherwise abandoned apartment in Kobe, suspiciously un-stale and unspoiled, as his stomach twisted and burned with desperate hunger.

The bandages and disinfectant, folded together neatly in his waiting bag at his rendezvous point in Tulsa, and they never left him with such mundane aid supplies as that before, but he was grateful for it later as he huddled in a back alley, burrowed among sopping bags of stinking garbage with a knife embedded in his thigh, fabric cinched bruising tight above the bloody handle, and his metal fingers didn’t shake as he sent the SOS, and he would have died, been permanently decommissioned if not for that extra kit, and – 

Tucked between the wall and a rattling refrigerator, the small cigar box (the lingering smell reminded him of a dance hall, of waiting with someone at the check-in counter for their patched coats, laughter – but no, weapons don’t laugh, and they certainly don’t dance) filled with a carefully clipped collection of delicate yellowed paper, box scores circa 1941 for some American baseball team called the Brooklyn Dodgers, but Brooklyn was a borough in New York, in the United States of America, and he was in a dark and empty safe house in Porto Alegre, and it was 1988, and oh, was he sick, and his head hurt – 

The safe houses that appeared along his path, when he was running or hiding or _freezing, always freezing_ – 

The maps that were left in the rickety desk drawers of sleazy motel rooms, that led him to safety – 

The indecipherable tokens left behind in places of the world they should never have been found, that made him feel – made him feel – made him _feel_. 

“Buck,” Steve breathed. 

Bucky’s knees were weak as he dropped heavily on the bench next to Steve. “I always thought,” he said as he stared blankly ahead, “I always thought it was _them_.”

But he was certain now, as memory after memory flooded his mind unbidden: it couldn’t have been Hydra, could never have been Hydra, because those things that kept him safe, kept him healthy and alive, that reminded him of a humanity he couldn’t even remember, it wasn’t his handlers’ foresight, it wasn’t luck. They were gifts, carefully planned actions borne of love that transcended space and time and reason and logic.

It was _him_. 

Every bit of luck. Every fortuitous occurrence that led him out of harm’s way, that gave him a moment of respite.

It had always been him. 

“What was I supposed to do, Buck?”

Bucky turned to Steve, saw that his eyes were pleading and wet. Steve swallowed audibly, his thin voice choked as he continued, “I couldn’t save you. It would’ve – I’m so sorry, Bucky. But I realized, I could still take care of you. The best I could. I’m sorry, Bucky, I –”

“Shut up. Just. Shut up for a second.”

Steve’s teeth clicked as he hastily obeyed, and Bucky scrubbed at his own damp cheeks, his scruff biting against his flesh fingers. 

“You. You _son of a bitch_. Do you realize what could’ve happened to you if they caught you? Do you realize –" 

“It was worth it. I memorized your files down to the letter when you were in the wind. I knew their plans. I knew the missing pieces and, god, it didn’t make sense before, Buck, but when I got back there, I just knew. I _knew_.” Steve reached out with a shaking hand, knuckles swollen with arthritis, and grasped Bucky’s shoulder, then pushed across the expanse of the broad expanse of his shoulders, pulling him into himself. “I couldn’t save you. But I could take care of you until I found you again.”

Bucky wrapped his arms around Steve, squeezing him tightly, carefully. 

“I had such a good life with her, Buck,” Steve whispered, and Bucky could hear him clearly over the gentle breeze, the lapping waves, the distant murmur of Sam and Banner, hear his gratitude and wonder and relief and love. “It was beautiful. But I couldn’t just leave you. And god, did I miss you. Every day.” 

Bucky’s chest felt full as he closed his eyes with a sigh and leaned his head against his friend. The tang of sweat and leather, the wiry, unbridled strength beneath his hands; despite the years that had passed in the blink of an eye, nothing had changed. “Can’t wait for you to tell me all about it, pal.”

“I will. I’ll tell you everything. Might take a while though.”

“I know. It’s okay.” Bucky smiled, and held him close. “I got nothing but time.”


End file.
